Intel calls for patent reform

Gives its House chums a Chinese burn

Chipzilla is pressing the US House of Representatives to pass patent reform legislation.

It already has the Senate backing Patrick Leahy's patent reform bill and it wants the US House of Representatives onside.

According to The Hill, Paul Otellini was in Washington last week for a private meeting with House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith to "discuss the issue". In lobbying terms this is calling the big guns to give politicians a Chinese burn.

Intel vice president for global public policy, Peter Cleveland, said Intel is right in the middle of trying to get the law changed and it is very hopeful about it.

So far the law has been proceeding through the Senate in an orderly manner.

The bill's provisions include a switch to a first-to-file system rather than first-to-invent, and allowing the US Patent and Trademark Office to keep its fees.

Intel also wants the bill to include a process known as an inter partes review, through which disputes over how patents are issued can be handled administratively rather than via litigation.

If this goes ahead Cleveland said the process would save tech firms millions on legal costs.

Currently Chipzilla spends $125 million defending its 46,000 patent portfolio.

He said that this was a drag on Intel's ability to innovate and it suffers from lots of frivolous litigation.

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Small entities have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than do large firms who can control their markets by their size alone. The smaller the firm, the more they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors. Yet small entities create the lion's share of new jobs. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” Congress is rushing headlong into disaster. This bill will be a wholesale slaughter of US jobs.

Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is. Patent reform is a fraud on America. This bill will not do what they claim it will. What it will do is help large corporations maintain their monopolies and kill their small entity and startup competitors (which is exactly what they intended it to do) and with them the jobs they would have created.

Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.http://docs.piausa.org/